jamie62618

We are planning a trip to Anchorage-Denali-seward the 2nd week in June 2008. Has anyone traveled at this time. If so, what is the weather usually like. Are you able to see the glaciers or are they covered with snow at this time?

Thanks,
Jamie

dwooddon

I feel fairly confident it will be cool, warm, clear, overcast, fair, drizzly, rainy, and foggy. The weather in Alaska is very pleasing to most people. If you don't like what you see, wait a few minutes-it will change.

Seriously, you will likely expereince variations in weather and you should be prepared for all those conditons.

It's hard to predict what amounts of snow they will have this winter but, to my mind, it really doesn't matter. The mountains and glaciers are gorgeous no matter whether they are snow-covered or not.

thit_cho

I was there at the end of this June, and the weather was perfect. About which glaciers are you referring? The best glacier views on our trip were those at Holgate, on the Kenai Fjords cruise out of Seward. I posted photos on this site, but they have sunk to the bottom, but if you're interested, you can find them easily.

Michael

travelinwifey

Weather is unpredictable, travelers that went to Alaska two weeks prior to my June 21 cruise this year still encountered snow on the ground.

Am not sure if you are thinking of boating to the glaciers, try the shore excursion forums at cruisecritic.com to read traveler reviews that included land tours.

If you can at all travel in July or August the wildlife viewing will be much better for bears and eagles/wild birds when the salmon are spawning.

dfrostnh

When we went mid-June 2004 we hit a heat wave. Never thought to put on sun block and got a bad sunburn on my face. My husband had to buy some short sleeved shirts. It was a perfectly calm day when we went on the Kenai Fjords tour out of Seward. Nobody was sick. The wildflowers are gorgeous. There were plenty of eagles in Homer. A mother moose and calf kept visiting. It's fun to be there for the summer solstice. There was a huge chunk of bluish glacier floating in the lake near the Portage Glacier visitors center. You might be a little early for salmon. I think it got busy at Russian River toward the end of the month.

Samsaf

We've been there the first week of June, and when we went we had beautiful weather. We saw bears, moose, caribou, goats, eagles, whales.

We wore our coats when touring Denali, but other than that, we never wore our coats. We also only had rain showers one evening for about five-ten minutes. We had rain gear with us, but we didn't need it. I realize that this is only one particular time, but we had gorgeous weather!

amdc

It's really hard to predict that far in advance because weather conditions are so variable. Milder winters produce more snow and extremely cold winters we have less snow. (At some point it's too cold to snow.) Also, no matter what type of winter we have - spring can vary. Sometimes we still can get snowfall in May. I agree with the others - it's beautiful no matter.

spirobulldog

We were there the last week in June. Weather was perfect one day and then kind of misty/rainy/cloudy the next. It really does change often. We did Seward and Soldotna area. We fished with bears about 25 ft away from us on a floatplane fishing trip. We dogsledded on a Glacier @ Girdwood/Alyeska. Took tram to top of Alyeska and did a Glacier hike. Did Renown Tours of Kenai Fjords. Rode Train from Seward to Anchorage. Kayaked in Resurrection Bay. We travel a lot and this was probably the best vacation we have ever been on. It was our first time in Alaska. We will go back in the winter sometime to see the northern lights and then to Denali in summer sometime. The one thing we didn't like was it was extrememly hard to sleep unless you had good curtain shades. It is almost total light 24 hrs a day. Alyeska Resort was the only place we stayed that had good shades over the windows.

BayouGal

Jamie, I had the same kinds of concerns you are having before our first trip. Let me reassure you that weather will not matter. As others have said, it changes quickly and often. We had one of the best days of our lives on the NW Kenai Fjords boat tour where we spent about 10 hours with drizzling rain on and off all day. We saw incredible wildlife and spectacular scenery. I wouldn't have changed a thing!

The glaciers are magnificent without or without recent snow. They are so massive that it does not affect their appearance and you really won't know if it's new snow or not.

It's colder when you're near glaciers, so bring layers that can be added or removed. We needed warm gloves and hats in early June.

You will love Alaska, even if you get some rain, fog, and cloud cover. We got it all and still had a marvelous vacation.

jamie62618

Thanks for all the good input. We booked our airline tickets for June 13-21, 2008. Jamie